Using Filter ID in SAP Portal
The SAP Portal has the capability to assigned a portal desktop to a user based on the several aspects like group, user ID or the URL used to access the portal. To give the end-user not only a different desktop but also a different navigation based on the assigned desktop you can use the filter ID feature. This gives the content administrator control over what the user can see. For instance, he can use this feature to enable / disable certain navigation points. An employee accessing the portal from outside the company won`t be able to see the same links as when being inside the company. These way users can get an adjusted navigation based on their location or the device used. In this blog I will show how to configure your portal so that a user will have a navigation based on the URL alias.
Assume your portal users are accessing the portal via the portal URL /irj/portal. You now want to differentiate between internal users and external users. To do so, the users will access the SAP Portal by 2 different URLs*:
|
URL: /irj/portal/internal |
 |
|
URL: /irj/portal/external |
 |
(*The task for assigning the user to the correct URL should be of the proxy, firewall or VPN)
To achieve this behavior you need to carry out some configuration on the portal:
- Activate the filtering feature
- Configure the portal URLs
- Create the desktops
- Assign URL to desktop
- Assign entry points to desktops
1. Activate the filtering feature
The filter URL feature allows you to assign an entry point an ID and associate this ID to a desktop. The desktop will only show the roles with that ID (therefore: Filter ID). SAP Help. The parameter that has to be enabled is: FilterbyDesktopView.
This service offers more interesting configuration properties like:
- ContentArea
- InnerPage
- SortTypeOfInitialNodes
2. Configure the portal URLs
Create the URL aliases for internal and external access. This is done on the filesystem for your portal. You have to modify the web.xml of the portal (IRJ). The web.xml can be found at:
/netweaver/sap/SID/INST/j2ee/cluster/serverN/apps/sap.com/irj/servlet_jsp/irj/root/web-inf/web.xml
Insert the following configuration:
| For the internal URL |
portal/internal |
| For the external URL |
portal/external |
Restart you portal. Afterwards you have two more URL aliases that users can use to connect to your portal.
3. Create the desktops
As the desktop is responsible for filtering the entry points, you need to create a desktop for each Filter ID. For the external users, create a desktop and assign the filter ID “External”. You need to create a desktop for the internal URL also (Filter ID: Internal)
4. Assign URL to desktop
The new portal aliases (created in step 3) can be used in the portal rules to assign a destop.
5. Assign entry points to desktops
For external and internal users there are different roles:
Filter IDs work on entry points. To assign an entry point to a desktop it is necessary to configure the property Filter ID.
This filter ID assignes the entry point (folder) to the internal desktop. The user in this example works normally in the office and occasionally is a road warrior. Therefore, he has both roles assigned:
When the user now accesses the portal using http://server:port/irj/portal/external he will get presented with the entry points for external users:
We are using this for several of our companies to have "their own portal", even though they are technically using the same portal instance. Now overlapping users can still log into both sites and receive different content based on the URL they navigated to.
One question I have Tobias:
We are accessing the multiple URLs through external access using Web Dispatcher. For example: www.companyone.com and www.companytwo.com. If we map these URLs to redirect to www.companyone.com/irj/portal/urlalias1 and www.companytwo.com/irj/portal/urlalias2, will we still be able to use the URL Alias feature to filter the portal desktops?
Thanks,
Owen
the URL alias rule applies for the portal/[alias] part, not for the FQDN. As long as the user uses the right alias, this will work.
But when you are already using different companies, you can also filter on role or group of these users. Filtering on one of these properties also means that the user can use the same URL to connect himself to the portal.
br,
Tobias
after upgrade to 7.01 SPS6 . The FilterID are only working after press F5 in the IE. Have someone the same problem ?
Regards
Daniel
have you cleared the cache of your browser? Does this only happen with IE or also with FF?
br, Tobias
I have clear 100 times the cache of the ie . The problem is with FF IE 6,7,8 ..
Regards
that the change isn't reflecting was an error when this feature was released (see SAP Note 1162644 -> https://service.sap.com/sap/support/notes/1162644). But this was fixed with EHP1 SP5. You can check if your entire portal is on SP6. If it still persists you should add SAP Support.
br,
Tobias
I have 2 url :
/irj/portal/pes
/irj/portal/pd
when I logon,the navigation is filter.the different url see different navigation .
but the iview in Content Area is always display
the first role's iview!
did you have this porblem?
how can i do something?
thanks
I think custom layout is not reason.
I change use lightframeworkpage . everything is ok
thanks